A complete website audit is a thorough examination of the entire website to ensure it's performing at its best. This means a comprehensive analysis that looks at everything: how the website looks (design and color schemes), how easy it is to use (navigation and layout), and how well it works technically (loading speed and functionality). We assess content quality to ensure it's engaging, effective, SEO optimized, grammatically correct, and not plagiarized. We check marketing efforts and SEO to see how well the site attracts visitors and ranks in search results, including on maps for local searches. We review the development aspects, like the technologies used to build the site (tech stack) and its overall structure (website architecture). We also analyze the landing pages, backlinks from other websites, and anything else that can impact the site's success. In short, we leave no stone unturned to help the website perform optimally and achieve business goals.
We will guide you through our step-by-step process for performing a comprehensive website audit. We'll recommend effective tools that can assist you along the way. We won't provide a simple auditing checklist because relying solely on one can be risky. Evaluating a website requires professional expertise. A checklist can't teach you how to analyze complex aspects like content optimization psychology, user experience nuances, content quality, detailed web accessibility, or advanced SEO techniques. It won't help you understand why a specific content management system or framework might hinder the site's performance. While tools are invaluable and handle much of the heavy lifting, they can't replace the insights gained from experienced professionals. Relying only on tools doesn't lead to a thorough audit; the blend of expert analysis and the right resources makes the difference.
Our website auditing process is designed to meet each client's unique needs because we understand that not everyone requires the same level of analysis. We firmly believe website audits should provide actionable insights that can be implemented rather than serve as a stepping stone to selling additional services. While audits often reveal issues that might lead to significant changes or even rebuilding a website, our primary goal is to help improve what is there. If our audit finds that rebuilding this site will probably be cheaper, we will let the client know, but this isn't always the case and isn't a consideration we make lightly.
We offer three tiers of website audits:
By offering different audit types, we ensure the level of insight and assistance that best fits the needs and goals of the entity asking for the audit. We do not believe in flat-rate audit pricing because sites operate under vastly different complexities and criteria. Regular audits should be done for most businesses with a marketing budget since they both find potential issues and opportunities for improvement.
We utilize a suite of automated tools to begin our website audit process. These SEO audit tools are essential because they quickly identify the most obvious technical issues. As we go through the issues, we keep an eye out for design and content problems. We rely primarily on three industry-leading SEO tools: Screaming Frog, SEMrush, and Ahrefs. Since this is a guide for performing an audit, we won't get into detailed training for any specific tool.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a powerful auditing tool that forms the backbone of our technical audit and will help with most technical SEO issues. While it offers a free version, we recommend the paid version for its enhanced capabilities. Including sitemaps in the crawl gives a more comprehensive website analysis.
This tool helps us identify major issues such as broken links, multiple H1 tags, canonical problems, and over 300 other issues. The data can be exported into spreadsheets, allowing clients to see which pages need attention for any given issue. Screaming Frog covers most of the technical aspects of the audit, but interpreting the data requires technical knowledge.
SEMrush Site Audit is user-friendly and provides a Site Health score, which we completely ignore. They divide their audit into Errors, Warnings, and Notices. While SEMrush can help those less familiar with technical SEO by suggesting fixes to improve the Site Health score, many issues it identifies, such as low text-to-HTML ratios, can often be ignored as they do not impact the website or SEO.
SEMrush serves as an additional check to ensure we catch any issues Screaming Frog might have missed, providing redundancy in our audit process.
Ahrefs Site Audit also provides a website health score. It offers unique performance highlights that the other two tools do not, and its site structure analysis is easier to follow when evaluating website architecture.
As we run these tools and compile a comprehensive list of issues, our next step is to present these findings in a clear and actionable manner. For each identified issue, we will:
We use Screaming Frog to evaluate any website we update to ensure there aren't any new errors. We also have all clients added to Semrush and Ahrefs automated audits to be alerted of any new errors that may arise over time.
Once we have compiled all the data from the automated crawls, we manually go through the entire website structure. We carefully evaluate every section and template at all possible screen sizes by analyzing the site using different devices and browsers. This process requires a trained eye, but the main things we look at are:
It isn't possible to create a complete list of design and CRO issues, and we usually find a new issue on every site we evaluate. The easiest way to evaluate things is to ask whether it is the best way to do something and whether the user will understand what is happening. Design is about usability as much as it is aesthetics. We look for additional design flaws as we continue the audit.
A full UX audit requires user behavior tracking tools with video and/or heatmap recordings to show user interactions and user engagement with a website. While this is important for ongoing marketing campaigns, it is often beyond the scope of audits for people who are not current clients. There are still some self-evident usability issues that are common among sites, and that can be improved. Among these are:
A complete list is impossible because there are endless potential user experience issues. We are always surprised at what we find on new websites. Web technology constantly evolves, and new website trends change how people build and interact with websites.
After we have gone through the automated tools and design audits, we test the manual portions of technical SEO and website performance. During this phase, we test loading times, page requests, waterfalls, robots.txt, sitemap, URL structure, internal linking, checking for indexing issues, and potentially hacked resources.
For loading times, we typically use a combination of GTMetrix.com, Web Page Test, and Google Page Speed and test at varying speeds and locations. We add any specific issues to the audit, and how much this requires heavily depends on the site's quality and things like CMS. To properly understand the results, you should know how to evaluate and fix the issues on that specific CMS using custom code. Most people on WordPress recommend using plugins to resolve the issue, but if the answer is always to use a plugin, you may not know how to properly evaluate the problems, and more research may be needed. We recommend fixing the Core Web Vitals scores, but it is best to improve all things reasonably and not focus on scores too much. Core Web Vitals does not influence ranking as much as people think it does, but slow websites will reduce conversion rates.
We also manually evaluate the robots.txt file to ensure it isn't blocking the wrong things, like being crawled by search engines, but is blocking sensitive files related to admin and the CMS that may have passwords and license keys. Check to ensure that the website redirects when loaded through http://, something we find fails on around 20% of websites. Check for a functioning 404 page and ensure redirects are not handled by an auto-routing plugin that finds what it assumes is the best page.
We will also examine the URL structure and internal linking by clicking through the site, reading articles, and then evaluating with Screaming Frog. Screaming Frog lets you see incoming links, a link score, and anchor tags. We typically aim to ensure that all pages have enough incoming links and that anchor tags are used appropriately.
If we can get access to Google Analytics and Google Search Console, we check to see if any pages are getting traffic that shouldn't be an indication of a hacked website. We also check both Bing and Google using site:domain, Ex: site:geniusesforhire.com, to ensure only appropriate pages are showing, and that pages are being indexed. We find that sites indexing template pages with Latin text or with hacked pages around half of the time. You can specifically search for Latin text by using site:domain lorem, but this will only show if it has been indexed, not whether it exists and can be indexed.
Website content is probably the most challenging portion of the website to audit because it requires an understanding of on-page SEO, content quality, topical authority, and good writing. Nothing affects the search rankings or organic search performance as much as quality content with good internal linking that matches search intent.
The best way to audit a website's content is to understand the website's goals and audit those specific pages using tools like frase.io or Surfer SEO to evaluate the keyword topics and density against the competition. Then, run those pages through Grammarly to quickly check for grammar and clarity. Both Surfer SEO and Grammarly allow you to check those pages for plagiarism, and you can use Copyscape if you find issues and need to go deeper. Plagiarism checks ensure you won't have duplicate content issues if a competitor steals the content. Then, you can check the internal links to that page to evaluate the topical authority and anchor tags. Then, read through the content more closely to ensure that it provides value, answers potential questions, is in the correct order, and that the images and design of the page are appropriate and appealing.
This process is usually not possible for every page on every website, and we typically don't need to go that deep to find issues since most businesses don't even have pages for their most valuable targets. A faster way to evaluate the content quickly is to use the domain planner on Surfer SEO or Google Search Console and SEMrush to assess the page rankings and clicks compared to their goals.
We always do our best to evaluate as much of the website's content as we can within our given timeframe, but the truth is content marketing and on-page SEO are ever-evolving processes that should be continually audited and adjusted over time. The explosion of low-quality AI content necessitates aggressive vigilance over content improvement. You can audit the existing content quality, but content audits are better done in a campaign over time.
No SEO website audit is complete without evaluating backlinks. As much as Google and some SEOs claim backlinks aren't important, and even though they aren't as important as they used to be, they still determine a portion of the SEO rankings.
Our backlink audit evaluates a backlink profile based on seven criteria: quality, quantity, link types, trust factors, broken links, anchor tags, and referral traffic.
Quality: Are there links from high-quality, high-authority websites? The best way to determine this is to use the backlink tools from Ahrefs and filter by DR. Ironically, though, while filtering by DR makes finding the better sites easier, a high DR does not always indicate a good site or a good link. Profile links usually come from high DR sites, but are better used as link diversity and trust factors than they are for link quality. You can also take this a step further by checking the page rank of the links to the site because many external links come from pages without any incoming links. A link from a page with many links on a lower-traffic site is often better than a link from a page without any incoming links from a higher-traffic site.
Quantity: Is there an appropriate number of backlinks? While a single high-quality link is better than thousands of toxic links, a single link often doesn't help much in isolation. We both check to ensure there are enough links to a page and haven't bought bulk bad links.
Link Types: We encounter many people who fall into one of three bad categories. They think that profile links are high-quality backlinks, they think link quantity matters more than anything and buy thousands of cheap links, or they think that all links must be earned naturally and have no incoming links. A variety of link types are best for ranking, and we don't discuss many of these types publicly, but it is important to note that thousands of low-quality links never help.
Trust factors - Profile links often fall under trust factors. There should be links from the top sources in the industry. As an example, lawyers should have links from Avvo, Findlaw, Martindale-Hubell, Lawyers.com, Justia, and any relevant directories like Yelp, YellowPages, FourSquare, and the main business profiles from Google Business Profile, Bing Places, and Facebook. We consider these links trust factors because all legitimate lawyers have them, and it shows it is a legitimate business and law degree. The trust factors are different for every industry, though the business citations and profiles do have some overlap.
Broken Links: You can find links pointing to the website using Ahref's broken backlinks or SEMrush's broken pages. (Backlink Analytics> Indexed Pages> +Broken Pages) When altering the URL of a page, you should always create a redirect from that URL to the new page. Many bad web designers and SEO agencies use plugins to automatically reroute users to a similar page instead of fixing and redirecting broken links. Site redirects are one of the most common issues we find when auditing websites.
Anchor tags - Anchor tags are a commonly underutilized portion of SEO. We have done direct studies on backlink anchor tags directly, immediately improving search results on given terms. By diversifying the anchor tags, you can improve the number of keywords a page ranks for. If all anchor tags are exactly the same keyword, this is both a spam signal and limiting since one page should rank for multiple keywords. We don't get into specific anchor tag ratios, but we find that variation improves rankings for numerous keywords.
Referral traffic: If we can get access to Google Analytics, we also like to check the amount of referral traffic coming in from other sources. The best types of authority and backlinks are links that provide traffic. Having multiple traffic sources also helps show the site is legitimate, a respected brand, and an excellent trust factor. We can check organic traffic from Google, Bing, and other search engines through Google Analytics. We can also check referral links, social media, email newsletters, and advertising campaigns. This step is valuable but is usually only used for current clients or larger sites with better marketing.
An accessibility audit is a specialized audit that should be completed by a specialized agency, but there are overlaps between sound design, good SEO practices, and accessible websites. Every good web designer should understand at least basic accessibility practices, especially since many accessibility improvements are also beneficial for SEO. Accessibility issues leave sites vulnerable to lawsuits and limit the potential customer base. The main things we check for are:
For more in-depth rules for accessibility, read through the W3.org WCAG documentation. You can also use the Wave Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool for a more automated test. However, you often need to understand more than the tool alone provides.
No website audit is fully exhaustive, and most sites don't need everything evaluated. Differences in industry, competition, budgets, and many other factors change what is needed for any site and site owner. These additional types of audits are done on a case-by-case basis.
A competitor analysis checks the website quality, organic traffic, keyword rankings, content gaps, backlink gaps, search ads, social media ads, content strategy, and other potential marketing channels of specific competitors. By doing this, you can often find new target keywords for SEO and search ads, discover new ways to engage with a social audience, and determine the budgets and effort for the marketing campaigns. Since marketing has nearly infinite possibilities and costs, it can be good to do just enough to beat the competitors and maintain the best ROI. Many businesses do better by spending less in a low-competition environment to maximize their ad spend, while others in high-competition markets may be wasting money if they cannot spend an appropriate amount to compete.
The amount of misspending in modern Google Ads accounts is staggering. The insistent push towards increased automation and broad match keywords ruins ad campaigns. Most businesses spend money on keywords that provide them with absolutely no value. Mismanagement and mistargeting in Google Ads can cause search advertising to cost ten times more than it should. Due to the direct competition driving up auction costs, we can't give away all our strategies, but a basic Google ads audit should look at the search terms to make sure the account is bidding on what is valuable, appropriate negative lists, and making sure the targeting the correct locations and services with the ads. It is also helpful to use fraudulent click blockers like Fraud Blocker, or ClickCease.
Nobody should run search or social media ads without landing pages. Landing pages give targeted pages for targeted keywords and demographics that will increase conversions by a dramatic degree. Landing pages should undergo rigorous AB testing and audits to ensure the best performance. A landing page audit should include
Load time tests
Are there multiple CTAs that are always visible?
Is there an immediately visible and clearly stated offer?
Is there adequate social proof?
Does the business look professional and legitimate?
Are there easy contact or purchase methods?
Is there an engaging design that fits the industry?
Is the page relevant to the ad?
Do all images and copy support the page?
Is the landing page heavily targeted to a specific keyword and/or demographic?
Does the copy match the search intent if it is a search campaign?
Landing pages should be continually improved until the perfect spot for the highest conversions is found. No website or marketing campaign is complete without high-performing landing pages.
Google Business Profiles are necessary for all local businesses. Several factors go into specific rankings, and an audit should cover the most important ones. Things you should check for:
Are the primary services and keywords in the business description?
Are there both business and user images?
Are there good reviews with an appropriate velocity?
Are the questions and answers complete?
Are the core citations and business profiles completed with consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number)
Do the primary services have appropriate pages on the website?
GMB audits vary among industry and competition levels but are necessary for all local businesses. It is also good to provide heatmaps from a company like BrightLocal or Local Viking.
A tech stack audit can be semi-dangerous since most people only recommend the tools they are the most comfortable with, but experienced SEOs and good developers can recommend the best stack. An appropriate tech stack audit should focus on outdated frameworks, deprecated plugins, consolidating services, removing unused services, modernizing systems, and attempting to remove tech debt, training debt, and vulnerabilities.
Examples are things like removing or updating JQuery, migrating from Bootstrap to Tailwind, or using a better SEO plugin. The two issues we most commonly find are WordPress sites with an absurd number of plugins or SPAs with legacy systems that are more expensive to maintain than rebuild.
For a full security audit, you will need a cybersecurity pentester, but we may look at the most obvious security issues. Cover the basics like testing SPF records, setting up DMARC, ensuring all plugins are updated, and checking for vulnerabilities in the CMS and plugins. If the site is on WordPress, ensure it is using a security plugin like Patchstack, Wordfence, or Securi.
Many small businesses don't use branded emails, update their websites, or have processes for what to do if there is a hack. We recommend that all clients at least have a backup plan. Many hosting services only have 30 days of backups, and that honestly is not enough. All websites should have redundant backups stored in various ways, going back as far as possible so they never lose everything.
If you want to start immediately call us at 1-800-930-8597